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War declared, Israel v Palestine...

tiggers said:
Exactly!

You're probably right.... I'm generalising way too much, but it's a factor.

Sorry, feeling very grumpy with the world this morning!
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Difficult not to wake up feeling angry at the insane justifications for genocide and war crimes we hear day in day out. We are being led by moral cowards that justify the extremism of the Israeli government. Quite shameful.
 
ks.234 said:
Difficult not to wake up feeling angry at the insane justifications for genocide and war crimes we hear day in day out. We are being led by moral cowards that justify the extremism of the Israeli government. Quite shameful.
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Yes, exactly that.... and I find myself having to bite my tongue with so many people who jump to their defence.

The thing that really scares me is how the average Joe gets so easily suckered in by the way the media present this... I just ask people who discuss it with me to think a bit harder about it, research some history and do a search for opinion pieces and coverage of the situation outside of the Western mainstream media and then see what they think.

I know I get criticised on here for being arrogant or whatever and that's my bad (as the kids say these days), but I'm really not... I'm just a reasonably intelligent person, but so are lots of other people so I think to myself if I can look at it with a broader view I am sure they can too... it's the tacit acceptance of what the BBC and likes tell them as being 'the only truth' that worries me.
 
I hear this is a good film...


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gavreid said:
It's just another 'clever' way to say that he supports the genocide without explictly outing himself. That's the problem with taking your lead from Starmer!
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Also very revealing that support for “the centre” is characterised by a frequently expressed paranoia about ‘the left’ and an accompanying silence about the far right
 
Times like these I like to take comfort in the good book, as I understand many senior US politicians do.

A clip from a current church website,

"Even with the Syrian Civil War, which began in 2011, Damasus is still a vibrant city with many markets and museums—a major cultural center of that region.

It might be difficult to believe that the destruction of Damascus mentioned in Isaiah 17 is possible when you see the abundant life there today.While we don’t know all the details of when desolation will take place, we see the destruction of Damascus coming because it is written in God’s Word"

We haven't moved on that much from Salem.
 
Kirk said:
More irony from the left.
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Not at all.

Calling things you disapprove of "extremism" is virtually content-free and intellectually weak.

For example, violent opposition and resistance to the genocide of Jews in Nazi Germany was way outside the bounds of "normal politics" and likely condemned as "extremism". But it was the right thing to do in the fight against a historic evil.

Content, not form.
 
tiggers said:
Yes, exactly that.... and I find myself having to bite my tongue with so many people who jump to their defence.

The thing that really scares me is how the average Joe gets so easily suckered in by the way the media present this... I just ask people who discuss it with me to think a bit harder about it, research some history and do a search for opinion pieces and coverage of the situation outside of the Western mainstream media and then see what they think.

I know I get criticised on here for being arrogant or whatever and that's my bad (as the kids say these days), but I'm really not... I'm just a reasonably intelligent person, but so are lots of other people so I think to myself if I can look at it with a broader view I am sure they can too... it's the tacit acceptance of what the BBC and likes tell them as being 'the only truth' that worries me.
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If it's any consolation, I've been on a similar journey in the last few months.

I suppose I'm seen as one of the more left-wing members of the forum, but I don't think I've ever had the knee-jerk hatred of the US and "Western imperialism" characteristic of many on the left. I try to assess claims on their merits, based on evidence, and regardless of their source, so this has led me to be sceptical of US claims (e.g. about the Iraq war) but that never amounted to an anti-US ideological bias. I also still held to some form of belief in the idea that there "is a rules-based international order".

The last few months have totally shattered that last illusion, and the behaviour of Israel, the US and its allies in the days following the ICJ ruling has ground those shattered fragments into dust. It feels like a moral catastrophe of historic significance, and it's hard to see how there's any going back from here.

I think I would have arrived at this position even if I'd only watched mainstream news, but tuning into Al Jazeera occasionally has been a complete eye-opener. It's a way of seeing the US and the West as other parts of the world see us, and it's not a pretty sight. It's made me realise how slanted and parochial the news agenda is in the UK. It's also made me realise how it is completely permeated with racist assumptions about non-whites who are presented either as savages, or as nameless and faceless victims, en masse - whereas the Israeli victims of the 7th October attack are portrayed as individuals with rich inner lives and moving personal histories.

The last few months have sickened and devastated me.

So yes, I fully understand where you're coming from. My only advice is to go easy on yourself and step away from the fray when you have to. On a personal note, I've always hated demos, but I've found going to a few in Sheffield has helped (the "I'm not alone" cliche), though I realise these things aren't for everyone.
 
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droodzilla said:
If it's any consolation, I've been on a similar journey in the last few months.

I suppose I'm seen as one of the more left-wing members of the forum, but I don't think I've ever had the knee-jerk hatred of the US and "Western imperialism" characteristic of many on the left. I try to assess claims on their merits, based on evidence, and regardless of their source, so this has led me to be sceptical of US claims (e.g. about the Iraq war) but that never amounted to an anti-US ideological bias. I also still held to some form of belief in the idea that there "is a rules-based international order".

The last few months have totally shattered that last illusion, and the behaviour Israel, the US and its allies in the days following the ICJ ruling have ground those shattered fragments into dust. It feels like a moral catastrophe of historic significance, and it's hard to see how there's any going back from here.

I think I would have arrived at this position even if I'd only watched mainstream news, but tuning into Al Jazeera occasionally has been a complete eye-opener. It's a way of seeing the US and the West as other parts of the world see us, and it's not a pretty sight. It's made me realise how slanted and parochial the news agenda is in the UK. It's also made me realise how it is completely permeated with racist assumptions about non-whites who are presented either as savages, or as nameless and faceless victims, en masse - whereas the Israeli victims of the 7th October attack are portrayed as individuals with rich inner lives and moving personal histories.

The last few months have sickened and devastated me.

So yes, I fully understand where you're coming from. My only advice is to go easy on yourself and step away from the fray when you have to. On a personal note, I've always hated demos, but I've found going to a few in Sheffield has helped (the "I'm not alone" cliche), though I realise these things aren't for everyone.
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Thanks Drood, I have always enjoyed your posts and felt we are not a million miles apart on our thinking over many subjects, but I always feel you articulate your thinking a lot better than I do and it's always well reasoned and it seems you are able to rise above any pettiness between posters too. A shattered illusion and moral catastrophe is exactly how I feel too and a very good way of putting it... we have crossed a divide now and there is no going back.

The one thing I will say is the news agenda is not new to me as I was heavily involved in campaigning for the Leveson recommendations to be implemented and spent a lot of time researching how they operate, their ideologies, moral codes (or lack of them) and then having lived in several other countries for work contracts it opened my eyes to how world events are presented differently across different nations. I have been a long time reader of Al Jazeera for that reason, and I try to get a balanced view of world events although time is often my enemy in that regard. I think I am probably almost too sceptical now as I tend to question just about every major story in our media even perhaps when I shouldn't but I'm straying OT here.

Good idea about going on some demos... I used to do a lot of that, but Leveson left me a bit disillusioned to be honest... went on one of the Remain marches over Brexit and must say that helped psychologically so I will do the same here... thanks for the suggestion.
 
gavreid said:
I guess many did similar in the 60s over Vietnam. We need a new 1968 moment!
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I read Alex Callinicos’s The New Age Of Catastrophe a couple of months back. In one way it can be quite a depressing read as he skilfully outlines the triple catastrophes of the Anthropocene age; the environmental, the geopolitical and the economic that are hurtling the planet and humanity over the edge of the abyss. However, the central message of the book is that we have historical examples of hope and renewal emerging from the most adverse of circumstances. And although I can sympathise with, and often share, the “waking up angry every morning” frame of mind, we have to remain optimistic otherwise we have nothing.

Taking a materialist view of history, Callinicos recognises the major epochs of production the world has passed through, and that all eventually ran their course due to their internal contradictions and had to give way to the new world struggling to be born. The great empires economically predicated on slavery- most notably the Roman- eventually collapsed, allowing the development of feudalism. The advances in technology, culminating in the Industrial Revolution, meant that the old feudal system of tarrifs and tithes were holding back economic development and the old feudal order eventually fell to the revolutionary new system of capitalism- encapsulated in the French Revolution.

Capitalism is now way past its sell by date and, quite literally with its refusal to abandon fossil fuels, is killing the planet. Something new has to emerge- and rapidly.

 
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If you wake up every day feeling angry about injustice thousands of miles away, then you worry about what you cannot control.
Not good. Stoicism ........helps, and the 3 wise monkeys. Stop torturing yourself with overthinking and every feed that comes out from media, be it East or West. All news agency's are just that, agents of a product that is Narrative and Public are hooked on it with 24hr bombardment and sales and turnover which exceed the imagination.
We are informed.........to worry and be controlled. Nope not living like that. All things must Pass.
 
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